Chapter 29

  Eric Walker

  Eric woke up slowly, cheek stinging, head full of warm slush. He groaned. “What the hell…?”

  The last thing he clearly remembered was hiding in one of the paintings in the Museum, preparing to meet up with McFinn. Eric had reported losing Heidi. McFinn had reported finding the door. They were close, real close, to going through onto Earth. And then…

  Kate stared down at him, concerned. “Eric!” she said. She raised a hand to slap him again.

  “I’m up, I’m up,” he said. Dark sky behind her. Smell of dust. Sand under his fingertips. Yeah, he was back on the Hollow Moon.

  He sat up, hoping that he would become used to waking up in another body without feeling all hungover. If indeed this was what being hungover felt like. He couldn’t be sure. He should ask Kate.

  “W-wh-w-wha-w-are you okay?”

  He nodded. “Your uncle woke me up on the other side,” he said. He looked around. His bike was close by, decorated by Frisby and Navi. Kate held the Dal segno in one hand. It maintained its shape even though the dots didn’t connect to the rest of it, just like the Repeat.

  “Oh! H-how was he?”

  “A little busy. OI jumped us. And…fuck, I lost Heidi’s spare body. Or, like, her original. Listen, why’d you wake me up?”

  Kate rocked back to sit on her heels. She brushed sand from her painted lab coat and dress. Her dress displayed a roiling mass of stormclouds, occasionally flashing with silent lightning. “Y-you were just p-pa-p-passed out!”

  “Yeah okay well I need to get back there. Leah’s in danger, and your uncle just found the door.

  “Rrrrrr!” She grabbed her lab coat in frustration. “I wish I could go with you! I want to see Riley and my dad and everyone!”

  “Well…” Well you shouldn’t have died, he was about to say, but she didn’t like thinking about that, and also she had only died to save Leah’s life, and also it would have been just kind of an asshole comment in general. So he didn’t say it. He was learning.

  “Okay!” she said. “Y-you need to g-ge-get back to sleep!”

  He sat up. “I’m not really tired though.” Also, what was he supposed to do with a Dal segno? He could worry about that later.

  Kate, as usual, had her bass at the ready. She swung it around, momentarily tangling it in her lab coat. “I will p-play…a soothing m-me-me-m-melody!”

  Eric did not have time to respond, because at that moment Eranex roared overhead. The sound was just as terrible as Eric remembered: part ripping visceral bass, part screech of tearing metal, modulated by a rapid oscillation like it was being filtered through an enormous spinning fan. And it was so fucking loud.

  It made Kate scream, though her shriek was nothing against the roar of the dragon. Frisby and Navi cowered under the laserbike. Eric flinched down into the dirt, tried to remain calm.

  The dragon Eranex descended from the clouds in a plummeting freefall like a jumbo jet seconds before the plane crash of the century. But she spread her tattered canvas wings, and they snapped open to ease her into a swooping descent. She sped over the rooftops until her path brought her directly over the courtyard, generating a storm of dust and sand that made Eric shield his face.

  She came to rest towering over Eric and Kate, perched on a nearby building that crumbled precariously under her weight. Her form remained shrouded as before in a cloud of dark fog, and all electric lights in the area stuttered out, leaving Eric and Kate illuminated only by the dim haze of the storm overhead.

  HELLO AGAIN, HERO OF TIME, she said. Her voice boomed into his mind like a foghorn. This was exactly what she had said the first time they’d met. Hello again. AND TO YOUR GUEST, HERO OF SKIES.

  Kate trembled but she remained standing. Slowly, carefully, she adjusted the strap on her guitar and stepped forward with one foot in a fighting stance against the dragon.

  The building on which Eranex perched collapsed under the weight; the dragon dropped down and shook the ground as her weight found new purchase. She hardly seemed to notice.

  “What do you want?” Eric asked. Not to be out-braveried by Kate, he got to his feet and stepped up beside her, though his legs felt watery and weak.

  TO THE POINT, AS EVER, said Eranex, and Eric got the impression that she was smiling as she thundered into his mind. Amused. I SOMEWHAT ENVY THOSE GUARDIANS ABLE TO BANTER WITH THEIR HEROES.

  Maybe, thought Eric, he was being too hard on her all this time. Eranex talked a big game, and she was threatening as hell, but so far she hadn’t actually done anything to hurt him.

  MY ROLE IS TO THREATEN, she continued. TO BRING DESPAIR, AND FINALLY TO FACE YOU, AND KILL YOU IF I CAN. I WOULD SPEAK IN RIDDLES. I WOULD PLAY THE ROLE OF DARK NEMESIS. BUT YOU HAVE NEVER CARED TO PLAY ALONG. NO INTEREST IN BEING THE HERO. IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY.

  Eric tried to process what she said. It was not easy with her thoughts rattling his brain, especially since he had to wait until she finished before he could even think. “What?” he muttered to himself.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Eric,” whispered Kate, “she m-means you d-don’t like p-pl-p-playing along with the s-story. Where she’s the v-villain and y-you’re the hero!”

  CORRECT, HERO OF SKIES. I MUST RESORT TO PLAIN ACTION, STRIPPING AWAY A FABRICATED CONTEXT.

  Eric looked to Kate for translation. “Okay,” she said, “that one I d-d-don’t understand.”

  I WILL SHOW YOU.

  She moved; the darkness rushed down toward them. By the time Eric perceived the threat, it was too late. He reached out, seized the pendulum of time—

  An eye emerged from the cloud of darkness—a red spotlight eye, glaring with malice.

  NO.

  Eric landed on his back in the barren dirt. When he scrambled to his feet, things were much as they had been before, with Eranex resuming her perch atop the pile of brick and mortar that had been a building. Except Kate was no longer with him.

  A CHOICE, HERO, said the dragon. ALWAYS, IN THE END, A CHOICE.

  Eric looked around desperately. No Kate.

  SHE IS HERE. The shadows surrounding the collapsed building parted to reveal Kate, gripped in the claws of the dragon. She thrashed, shouted, and struggled feebly against claws made of rusty broken iron beams.

  Eric wanted to shout some defiance, but he didn’t know what to say. He felt cold.

  ELSEWHERE IS YOUR SISTER. IN DANGER, IMMEDIATE AND DIRE.

  How did she know that? Did she actually know, or was she just reading his mind, his fears?

  I CAN PUT YOU TO SLEEP, HERO. YOU CAN GO TO HER. BE HER HERO.

  Kate cried out as the metal claws tightened around her.

  OR COME AND SAVE YOUR FRIEND.

  Eric couldn’t move. What was the answer? This had to be some game, some trick.

  “Eric!” shouted Kate. “G-go for Leah, Eric! I’ll be ok! T-t-trust—”

  QUIET.

  Kate flashed with light. A bolt of lightning struck down from the sky and speared Eranex. It momentarily dispersed the darkness, exposing the skeletal form of the dragon—concrete and metal, rope and canvas. Eranex growled. STOP. Kate began to reply, apparently unharmed by the lightning, but a further tightening of the dragon’s claws cut her off. She gasped, squirming in the rusty grasp of the dragon, trying to tell him something.

  SO. WHAT WILL IT BE, HERO? I AM CURIOUS.

  The weight of Frisby settled on Eric’s shoulder. Frisby wanted to tell him that Navi said that Kate said that he should go get Leah.

  Okay. Thinking logically.

  On the one hand, he could see exactly what kind of danger Kate was in right now. Eranex hadn’t said exactly what she planned to do with Kate, but Eric had no reason to doubt that it was bad. Possibly lethal. Whereas Leah’s danger was mainly theoretical, unless he wanted to believe that ‘immediate and dire’ business that Eranex had just said.

  But why wouldn’t he believe that? Both McFinn and those OI people had said pretty much the same thing. Leah was walking into a trap.

  But Leah was with allies who could protect her, while Kate was here on her own.

  But Kate had told him to leave her. Maybe she had a plan? Maybe she knew something he didn’t, beyond the usual library of things that already fell into that category? Maybe this was like when he had jumped off the tower at her palace to save her, only to realize that she had not needed saving. Or maybe she was just being brave and selfless, like she had the last time she’d died for Leah’s sake.

  But Leah was only a child. An awesome, cute, weird little kid who didn’t deserve any of this shit.

  But Kate was one of his best friends. And…

  But Leah.

  Maybe he stretched out time without noticing, because it seemed like he stood there for torturous hours.

  In the end, because it was all he could do, he made a choice.